Another player in the "Offer Who Beilein Offers" file

From the Rivals discussion board, here's a link to an interesting ESPN piece on Larry Nance, Jr., a kid Beilein was recruiting from the 2011 class. Beilein was looking at him as a late offer and I think we ended up taking Beilfeldt instead. Turns out he's having quite a nice season, at Wyoming of all places. It's pretty clear that Beilein and Company are some of the best evaluators of talent in the country.

As a random aside, it makes me wonder why Ben Braun didn't succeed more at Cal given that he seemed to have a similar eye as Beilein.

Braun, like Beilein, had a knack for identifying under-the-radar talent. Both coached at schools that were less than desirable in terms of attracting players, so they had to rely on scouting to get underrated players. Beilein's identification of guys like Gansy, Pittsnoggle, and Alexander, was impressive and reminds me of Braun's identification of players like Brian Tolbert, Earl Boykins, and Derrick Dial. Pretty impressive to three guys from one MAC team to the NBA (even though I don't think Tolbert made it out of rookie camp and Dial only played a few games for the Spurs).

His name popped up about the same time as Bielfeldt, which the OP correctly points out. I remember at the time really wanting to get Nance for a few reasons (even though I like Max and think he'll be a solid 4-year contributor)

We were looking for an athletic PF and even today could use a back-up to GR3.

He seemed like a guy with excellent fundamentals (NBA father) who had potential like most Beilein recruits.

At the time we were recruiting him Michigan was still striving for good publicity and relevance as a program under Beilein. Being the home for NBA sons was one way we were getting some attention and Nance would have added to that. At the time we had Hardaway, Horford, and Dumars with GR3 already committed. Adding Nance to the list seemed like both a good fit and a way to continue that theme. Having former NBA stars attending your games is a nice way to get the attention of the media and future recruits.

Even now I still like the idea of signing the sons of NBA players and wish we had Nance and Glen Rice Jr.